Changing Perfect : Roots
by Ephemera
Summary: A *Changing Perfect* AU story : Things went differently during Bargaining [slash] [complete]


Changing Perfect: Roots. A *Changing Perfect* AU story  
  
Author : Ephemera Email : AN1@starmail.com  
  
Disclaimer : They're not mine - Joss Whedon and several large companies made and own them - I 'm just playing.  
  
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I guess it's our anniversary tomorrow. Sort of. It's not something we'd celebrate anyway.  
  
Hell, it's hardly a day I would choose to remember - 'cept of course I can't forget. Still see it in freeze-frames on the inside of my eyelids, with a soundtrack of breaking glass and revving engines.  
  
See Giles' eyes as he locked one arm around Dawn's shoulders, as he realized the rest of his children were nowhere to be found.  
  
Remember Tara struggling up those stairs, focussed on nothing more than getting her lover to sanctuary. So concentrated to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and to carry the tiny handful of blood and bones that was Red.  
  
That was a performance I can tell you -trying to get a half way intelligible explanation of events from her. The shock took over, now they'd made it back to the flat, tying her words in knots. Dawn wide eyed at the blood, and Giles torn between helping with the practical and restraining his anger. Didn't wait to hear the whole of it. Let them think I was riding to the rescue - me, I just wanted to see for myself. Get away from them, get out, amidst the screams and the crashing glass, and find out whether or not my universe was going to be twisted around once again.  
  
I can see flashes of it as I blink now : flames on chrome, black leather and bitter black exhaust, like a final insult as they fled.  
  
Xander, standing in the midst of it, Anya's broken body in his arms. His eyes were so raw as he laid her down, cold, broken, ripped and torn and desecrated. Hands and arms frantic to cover her, sliding that thick liquid mud over the both of them. Blood, on his shirt, in his hair, slowly oozing from lips silently shaping a litany of negation.  
  
No one should have to see that - see their lover practically in pieces like that. Maybe I wouldn't have said that 20 years ago, but then I always was more for the fight than the picking apart of corpses. Never saw the point of tearing someone apart, once they were too far gone to feel it. More Angelus' cup of tea, that. His eyes ripped the scabs away from my four- month-shredded heart, and I don't think I've ever felt such empathy with a bloody human before. Found myself alongside, helping to dig deep and cover her, protect her from what was left of the world. Pulling him gently away.  
  
And then, inevitable as nightmares, the final image :  
  
  
  
Dark disturbed soil over the other grave and the pale fingertips of one hand, just visible as the rain washed away the mud  
  
  
  
No, I can't forget tonight's anniversary. Not sure I ever will. And no amount of JD will wash the feel of that mud out of my skin.  
  
  
  
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It's sort of our anniversary today. Well an anniversary. Not sure you could really say 'ours'. It's as good a starting point as any though. - You have no idea how humorlessly hollow that sounds.  
  
Yesterday was worse I think - me hiding in mindless work, him in bottles and battle - both of us fighting not to think. I almost don't want to go home tonight. Four years - it ought to be something to celebrate, but we're both of us hiding still.  
  
I remember some of it in slow motion, other parts not at all, for all the times I've told myself the story we pieced together.  
  
Willow lifting the urn, bleeding, writhing with the snakes fighting out of her. The crackle of power stretching the candle flames to impossible lengths in the sky. The downswing of that arm that knocked Willow out of our circle broke that connection and set us all adrift. But I never see the end of that blow - my memory just gets slower and slower as it falls, and then we're in jerky fast forward for days.  
  
I remember fighting, and I remember touching Anya's lips and finding no breath, and I remember blood, and mud, and pain. And I remember my hands tangling with someone else's as I fought the earth into accepting her. And I remember Spike. And I remember him drawing me away, touching me; bury Buffy's heart I think he said, wrong to bury Buffy's heart. And I remember it taking a few moments to register that he was talking to me, and that that was what I was doing, trying to drown myself in the mud, trying to pull a blanket of oblivion over the both of us. I think I remember thinking that it wouldn't be fair to Dawn, and almost laughing at the sheer weirdness of the thought, and hearing it come back to my ears as crying.  
  
And I remember him, crouched, frozen, staring. And realization in his eyes. And I remember quiet and warm water and cold hands. And I remember discovering that I had a black eye, a torn lip, a slashed arm, only as those pale cold hands cleaned and covered them.  
  
And I remember waking up in an unfamiliar room, that moment of lucidness where you are quite still, and you know it's different and you don't quite remember why it is that you're not in your own bed, and then you do. Or maybe I just think I remember that, because I know it must have been like that, because it happened that way every morning for months. A split second of peace and distant confusion, and then the heavy slam of knowledge.  
  
And I remember looking around in dim light, and seeing the tight curve of his back. Pale, smooth, rigid with tension and practically vibrating with trying not to feel any more. And I remember my hand - almost as though it was someone else's - so large and tanned next to his spine. I remember my hand reaching out to touch that back, that perfect misery that mirrored my own. And I remember him unraveling at my touch, twisting, reaching, as desperate for touch as I was to be touching something outside of my nightmares. Tight vibration becoming sobs, echoing in the tiny spaces between us, crushing together to stop them shaking us both to pieces.  
  
And I remember terror, as the shaking slowed, and that frozen moment of stillness, and then scrambling, being pushed - half thrown away. And all that knowledge just pouring back into the gaps.  
  
And I remember walking back to Giles' alone. Numb.  
  
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It was our anniversary yesterday. Well, one we share, in any case.  
  
It's probably selfish of me to run from the memories, but what else can I do? I've got to at least try to escape those pictures, right? But the guilt always comes back as the blood and the booze recede, always comes back when I come to, find him sleeping awkwardly, trying not to touch anything, touch anyone, touch me. And I know how tight the twist in his guts must be; to keep him so tightly wound in his sleep, to be powering his nightmares like that.  
  
And it's just how it was all those months ago - but this time it's my hand that reaches out, tentative comfort even now. Brief flood of relief when my touch is accepted, and then another jerk of guilt as even in sleep the shaking comes. Stroking to reassure - him or me I'm not sure. Wishing I could unlock that knot in my chest enough to purr for him - to offer his the deep comfort of that vibration. Never thought a human would be able to feel it, let alone want it, rather than run away at the reminder, how far from fucking normal we both are. But hands running over skin, so lightly, ghost touches at first, shoulder, down toned upper arms, over strong forearms, and surprisingly delicate wrists, tripping of the tip of a finger on to hips. Stroking down the inside of thighs, paler than the rest of him, then back up the outside, over a couple of small scars - taken in the line of duty one way or another. Over firm delicious arse, up that delectable curve of a waist, slipping over ribs, neck, touching hair, back down to the shoulder that's still hunched defensively, and again, and again, and again. Touches oh-so-gently deepening, as the shivering slows. Firmer strokes getting oh-so-slightly closer to balls and butt and nipples as it passes, sliding now down over his front, - smooth muscled chest, nipples rising up to meet my palms, softer stomach, the tickle of the trail of hairs leading me downwards. The different textures of him distracting me from the meaningless words I'm mumbling - love and reassurance and the forevers I don't dare believe in.  
  
And the shivering has stopped, muscles relaxing. Other reactions too, cock stirring, nipples bunching, back arching. And the sharp breaths have returned, but no nightmare terrors, just the sharp scent of arousal and sighs of want now. So I bring the arm that has been pillowing him down a little, bringing his other nipple, half pressed against the warm sheet, into range, and narrow the circuit of my other arm, circling closer and closer to his groin, tugging gently at black curls and skipping over and around. Pressing myself still closer to his warm back, pushing forward to meet his unconscious arching, letting my length settle into the grove of his buttocks, the pressure far from unpleasant. Slow, sleepy, safe now, more wonder in it than urgent need - wonder that we should be here now. Awe that there is something I can do against this invisible demon that threatens my love. Fierce, sad, aching joy that maybe, this time, I can change his dreaming, and that there's something I can make right, after all.  
  
And sudden movement in my arms, heat, and sliding as he wakes, coming, crying out as I try so hard to not hear what name he calls. Concentrate on the spill of heat over my hand, the sudden coolness of air against my dick as he jerks away, turning in my arms, before coming back to me, awake now. Touches his lips with his own cum, tasting himself, before he kisses me, my name this time, settling into my shoulder, lips on neck and hand on my still hard cock, sleepy, coming down from his waking dream, stroking me. Murmuring his own half-hidden promises and taking me over before he slips back into sleep.  
  
Today is better. 


End file.
